5 ms·

I'll extend and restate the obvious: EC2 doesn't make economic sense for most startups. EC2 shines for very small, very large or very dynamic deployments (jitt

by moe 15y ago

I'll extend and restate the obvious: EC2 doesn't make economic sense for most startups. EC2 shines for very small, very large or very dynamic deployments (jitter of at least +/- 20 servers). Most startups outgrow "very small" (2-4 Servers) quickly and then stick around in the mid-range (5-30 servers) for an eternity. During this mid-range phase EC2 is usually 2x-3x more expensive than rented dedicated servers.

ceejayoz 15y ago
> During this mid-range phase EC2 is usually 2x-3x more expensive than rented dedicated servers. That expense might be worth it, though, if your startup goes unexpectedly viral and the site goes down for hours or days while you wait for your host to provision new dedicated servers for you.
- mceachen 15y ago
  But in this sort of timeframe, you'd be able to switch your DNS to point to EC2 or heroku or whatever and scale out someplace else.
  - sandieman 15y ago
    What would you suggest instead?
jasonwatkinspdx 15y ago
1.) If you want to use cloud providers for your infrastructure and you get big, you need to get to where you're multi-homed and can leverage competition in discounts. You think netflix pays those rates? 2.) For small systems, don't forget hybrids! EC2 is a _steal_ as a disaster contingency option. Run your own stuff. Replicate state to EC2. Keep your configuration managed and up to date both places. Build your routing horizon (dns most likely, perhaps anycast) to be able to shift traffic between the two fluidly and quickly. Moron at your data center kills the power? No big deal, spin up instances and keep users happy. Got a big but occasional data processing job? No problem, and less ways the job can affect the production system. The open source tooling for doing this kinda sucks but it's getting better fast. It's a huge opportunity for smaller businesses to level advantage vs large organizations with multiple in house data centers.
rickmb 15y ago
Which would be relevant if the cost of bare servers wasn't just a minor part of the cost of maintaining the infrastructure for most organizations.
- stock_toaster 15y ago
  I would think dedicated servers (storm on demand "bare metal", softlayer, etc) would be the competitive alternative, not 'buy your own hardware and build your own datacenter'.

by moe 15y ago

ceejayoz 15y ago

> During this mid-range phase EC2 is usually 2x-3x more expensive than rented dedicated servers. That expense might be worth it, though, if your startup goes unexpectedly viral and the site goes down for hours or days while you wait for your host to provision new dedicated servers for you.

mceachen 15y ago
But in this sort of timeframe, you'd be able to switch your DNS to point to EC2 or heroku or whatever and scale out someplace else.
- sandieman 15y ago
  What would you suggest instead?

jasonwatkinspdx 15y ago

1.) If you want to use cloud providers for your infrastructure and you get big, you need to get to where you're multi-homed and can leverage competition in discounts. You think netflix pays those rates? 2.) For small systems, don't forget hybrids! EC2 is a _steal_ as a disaster contingency option. Run your own stuff. Replicate state to EC2. Keep your configuration managed and up to date both places. Build your routing horizon (dns most likely, perhaps anycast) to be able to shift traffic between the two fluidly and quickly. Moron at your data center kills the power? No big deal, spin up instances and keep users happy. Got a big but occasional data processing job? No problem, and less ways the job can affect the production system. The open source tooling for doing this kinda sucks but it's getting better fast. It's a huge opportunity for smaller businesses to level advantage vs large organizations with multiple in house data centers.

rickmb 15y ago

Which would be relevant if the cost of bare servers wasn't just a minor part of the cost of maintaining the infrastructure for most organizations.

stock_toaster 15y ago
I would think dedicated servers (storm on demand "bare metal", softlayer, etc) would be the competitive alternative, not 'buy your own hardware and build your own datacenter'.